Inside the New York Yankees clubhouse with MLB.com beat writer Bryan Hoch.

ALDS Game 2: Yankees vs. Tigers

(Photo by Chris Trotman/Getty Images)

It’s a beautiful afternoon at Yankee Stadium as the Yankees and Tigers continue the American League Division Series, with Freddy Garcia looking to put New York up two games to none as the ALDS prepares to go on to Detroit. Max Scherzer is hoping to have a little something to say about that from the Tigers’ standpoint.

Here are the lineups, as the Yankees are expecting to keep trotting the same lineup out there for the entire ALDS:

LUCKY No. 7: The Yankees have now won seven straight ALDS games, marking the longest-ever winning streak in ALDS games…is the second-longest LDS win streak all time behind Atlanta’s 10 in-a-row in the NLDS from 10/7/95-10/3/98.

GOOD DAY SUNSHINE: The Yankees were a Major League-best 44-12 (.786) in day games in 2011, recording the highest-ever win percentage in day games since 1900…according to the Elias Sports Bureau, the previous high was .748 (116-36) by the 1906 Cubs, followed by the 2008 Angels (32-11, .744).

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Porcello is pitching game 4 also, not a very consistent pitcher for them either…so a loss tonight and Burnett will have a short leash I’m sure…they could lose this and still win the series…momentum changes rapidly in these short series’.

This team NEEDS a lights out pitching performance by CC tonight. I do NOT believe the Yankees can lose this game and expect to move on. I do NOT trust putting the ball in the hands of Burnett in a must win game. The last two years have shown that AJ just is not the pitcher the Yankees are paying a ton of $$$$ for. CC NEEDS to shut their lineup down.

Alan: You sound like the eternal optimist and that’s good. However, I don’t have the confidence going into these two games in Detroit as you do. Not having CC in the first game was big. We could be up 2 now if he had pitched in game 1. Now it’s 1-1 and we go back to Detroit. They could easily close out this series in Detroit if we don’t win this 3rd game. I said all along I didn’t like the strategy of resting our big players in the last series against the Rays. We were swept in that series and have little momentum to caarry us into the playoffs, especially a short series. We haven’t got enough games out of 5 to get the engine up and running and again after we’ve let it cool off. I think that strategy of Girardi’s is going to bite us in the #ss and we’ll be looking back on what could have been. I hope you’re right Alan and I’m wrong. If I am, it won’t be the first time but I’d feel a lot better being up 2-0 than 1-1 right now. The middle of their lineup has been much better than the middle of our lineup. If that doesn’t change tonight we might as well start planning or next year.

Resting those players in the Tampa series was the absolute right thing to do,especially since the series was one which meant nothing, win or lose. This is the 9th oldest team in the majors with so resting them could only help them. There’s no evidence whatsoever that the rest did anything negative to hurt this offense. The offensive “struggles” in one game, and I STRESS, 1 game, most likely could have happened whether they got that rest or not. This team has been here before and has the skills and veteranship to fight its way through. If this team needs something to get itself up for a playoff series then there is something wrong to begin with, but it wouldn’t have anything to do with resting players.

I do agree with the fact that at 5 runs down with this lineup it’s still technically close, i would have preferred to see things going more down the Soriano (still don’t really trust him), Robertson route being only 5 down, but instead went with Wade & Ayala who coughed up an insurance run. Ayala is a reasonable pitcher, but late in the season his ERA climbed from 1.32 on August 6th to end at 2.09, granted most of the damage was done by the three runs he gave up on the final day. He’s got the playoff jitters – but yeah, could have done with the “reliable” guys. I don’t know with CC today, i know he only went 1 inning the other night, but that’s still with a full warmup – 7 innings would be great, 8 would be immense, but to be honest, if we get a few runs for him i’d be happy with 6 and turning it over to Soriano, Robertson, Rivera to close out. Other way to look at it, if we get to the ALCS which starts on Saturday, if he goes 6 then he’ll have more in the tank for game 1 of that series!
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I’m not worried about Jeter so far, i know he’s only hitting .200 but remember a certain time early in the year where he wasn’t hitting and if anyone’s going to go 4-4 you know Jeter’s a prime candidate. Tex & Arod need to come through though, like i said, stage fright – but you’re never sure when something’s gonna click and they’re gonna take off, you just hope that if/when they do it lasts all the way through the playoffs! Swisher, well, he’s a grafter, he knows he’s not gonna be in the same league as the premier hitters, but he keeps the lineup loose and that’s needed.

Allan….Excellent post, always enjoy your opinions here
A few observations here if I may…I like what I see so far out of Nick Swisher. As we all know from watching him, he is very streaky and he also seems to own Valverde.
In contrary, I don’t like what I see from Tex, Arod and Jeter, considering that they make more money than the entire Tampa team (all 25 guys put together), we must look to these stars to help us in the playoffs, that is why they get the big money. Also, Girardi has got to use his roster..Ayala is not our stopper in the late innings (he has pitched 3 games in row), we have 3 big guns in the bullpen, one Robertson, has not pitched in a week, another has thrown 3 pitches in a week (mo)…That run Ayala let up, could of been huge…the bullpen is well rested and you have CC going today which you would assume he will go 7 or 8 innings. What is he “resting” these pitchers for?…Spring training next year?…The season is on the line, bring your best…You use Ayala and Wade when you are 5-6 runs down, not in a close game in the playoffs?…His resting players philosophy drives us fans crazy!!!..All I have seen for the past week are Logan, Wade and Ayala and granted they have been great this year, they are not our big weapons…There’s also last years’ save leader down there, Soriano, who had a great second half…Please use these stars!!!

October – check, Arod in pinstripes check, Arod lacking clutch timing check. While he’s had some success in October (09 particularly springs to mind) a lot of the time when the playoffs come round Arod seems to get stage fright! Still, there’s a lot to play and despite the tough luck loss last night there’s positives to take from it.
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1 – we got to Valverde, the guy had 52 straight regular season saves dating back to 2010 and yeah, it wasn’t a save situation last night, but we got to him, compare that with Mo the other night – 3 pitches, 3 strikes. Now not for one second would i compare Valverde & Mo as pitchers, but Valverde now has to sit in the pen knowing we got to him for 2 runs – no better place to be than firmly in the mind of your opponent!
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2 – undeniable we’ve got ageing stars, but look at some of those ageing stars – Jeter & Posada for all their low points this season have been there & done it more times than almost anyone playing the game right now. Mo has been there, done that, busted the bats to prove it. Everyone with the exception of Russel Martin has been to a World Series (granted Granderson didn’t exactly light the world on fire in 2006 – but he’s matured greatly since then). That’s worth a whole heck of a lot, granted there’s a few remnants of that Tigers squad still around, but nowhere near the experience in the Yankees clubhouse, not even close!
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3 – the Tigers can hit the ball, but the Yankees can not only hit the ball, they can take you deep almost any time (even Gardner & Jeter can surprise you) and even then, if they don’t, hello, they can still manufacture runs. The one thing a lot of these guys can do is run up a pitch count, get someone like Gardner on base and he can throw your defense right out of their gameplan, same with Granderson, to a lesser extent Jeter or Arod are capable of the same thing. Granted Comerica is a big ball park, but you just watched as arguably the second slowest player in baseball legged out a triple last night (i think Ortiz moves slightly slower than Jorge!). Doesn’t take much if you’ve got speed to make things happen!
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If you look at those things then you can see some daylight, no excuses last night was a pretty rough performance all round but at the same time, it wasn’t the comprehensive win that i’m sure the Tigers would have preferred. They know that we’re capable of giving you nightmare innings & punishing mistakes – just got to hope that we can get to Verlander tonight & that CC pitches the way we all know he can pitch. Then you have the great postseason question – in game 4 are we going to get the AJ we saw against Boston at the end of season or the other AJ which looks like me going out there pitching? Bit of faith guys – this series is far from over and well, we’re all tied up going in behind our ace tonight, granted we’d rather be 2-0 but hey, life doesn’t always run to plan, it’s all about how you adapt to the curveballs in life.

Unfortunately, the thing is the Tigers have an excellent offense themselves, they were ranked higher than the Yankee offense this past season, so their offense is very comparable to the Yankees offense. It’s still going to take all hands on deck for the Yankees to beat the Tigers as the Tiger offense can do pretty much everything the Yankees can do offensively, except hit HR’s.

A player like Gardner isn’t going to make much of a difference, especially if he can’t get on base. He had a mediocre second half season and even lost AB’s to another player for the second straight year. He’s no leadoff hitter plus he doesn’t make thing happen on base. He’s not a player who provides a spark. It’s nice to have speed but it’s not the most important thing for an offense to have. You can create even more chaos with a strong lineup. As recent history has shown it’s the teams with strong lineups who can bash the ball who have dominated the post season, not teams who have based there offense around speed. Neither Detroit nor New York are those types of teams. In short, Gardner isn’t the type of player who is a difference maker.

As for the ageing aspect, this team needs to get younger, and quick, hopefully next season. The Yanks have too many old, slow, injury-prone players who are nearing or past their prime. History has shown time and time again, experience isn’t enough to win a championship, age can play a major factor in missing out on a championship. It’s nice to remember what players have done in the past, maybe 10-15 years ago, but they are no longer those players. All that matters is RIGHT NOW. They are still going to have to prove they can come through regardless.

Scherzer was extremely good tonight. His change-up consistently worked so he didn’t have to throw slider. He had great movement on his pitches. I know this isn’t what you guys want to hear, but Scherzer pitched like AJ Burnett when he had the great fastball. Bad mechanics, but great stuff——although with AJ and Scherzer you never know which one will appear. Too bad AJ can’t throw 98 anymore! AROD has to feel insulted. On one at bat they may as well as intentionally walked Cano to get to AROD. I guess what bothers most of us about AROD is he gets paid the most, but is about the 5th best player on team. I mean, he and Nick Swisher——similar stats the last couple of years—-except Swisher can switch hit, although AROD is a good third sacker. So, I see them about the same——but the expectations with AROD are so much greater.

Boils down to this fellow bloggers. Sabathia HAS to win tomorrow, no excuses. If this team goes down 2-1 and it hands the ball to A Jerk in a must situation in Game Four it will be wait until next year. Regardless of what happens this team’s pitching staff NEEDS an overhaul for next year. CC (assuming he stays) is #1, Nova has earned #2, Garcia pitches well enough for the #5 slot. #3 & 4 is where the PROBLEMS are. I have NO confidence in Hughes, Colon or Bustnett to fill those slots. They still NEED pitching. Jeter & Arod NEED to start hitting NOW!!!

Yankees in tough against Verlander tomorrow. Get behind 2-1 and then they have to win the 4th game to come to NY for the 5th. I’d feel much more confident if we were going up against Verlander being up 2-0. Rally too late tonight and not enough. Disappointing loss.

What’s with Jete tonight? 0 for 5? Two strikeouts. Guys on base almost every time at bat and does nothing. And his error started the rally in the 6th. Not a verygood night for Jeter or for others either. We woke up as a team way too late. Hard to come back with 4 run deficit in the 9th.

why did Girardi bring in Ayala again? Come on. Swish hits a homer but it’s probably too little too late. He’s pitched lousy in relief the last 2 games and again tonight gives up the 5th run which could turn out to be the winner. He doesn’t want to use his best relief pitchers and saving them I guess for Detroit. But it’s a short series and if the Yankees don’t get their bats going it could be another short one for the Yankees like 2006.

Has Boone Logan been talking to David Robertson down in the pen – give them some drama then strike someone out to end it?!? Desperately need to find some bats now though as i’d feel much safer going to Detroit up 2-0 than tied 1-1, especially knowing Verlander is ready to go tomorrow.

The game is getting away on us. Freddy is tiring. Jeter makes a throwing error on speedy Jackson and it’s 4-0 and no hits for the Yankees. The Yankees are not looking strong in this game. Seems like they’re just going through the motions. They’re certainly making the Tiger pitcher look good. Boone Logan is in. This could get worse.

It’s either feast or famine for this Yankees team offensively. 9 runs last night. Nothing so far today and no hits. Freddy has done well since the first inning. Need to get at least 6 from him, and hope we can get to the Tigers’ bullpen in the 7th.

Hi guys: Here we go. Hopefully another win for the Yankees. Freddy makes one mistake and Cabrera hits a line drive out of the park. Not a big home run in the second row but it counts. It’s not going to be as easy today for theYankees as it was yesterday. Tigers have a good hitting lineup. This is the swing game and an important one. Better to go into Tiger stadium 2 up rather than tied.

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